Forum - View topicWild Arms TV -- any good, or...?
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Unit 03.5-ish
Posts: 1540 Location: This space for rent |
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OK -- so I was curious about Wild Arms Twilight Venom because I'm a fan of the games (I feel they're seriously underappreciated, very fun games, but I digress). So I've heard mostly middling reviews on the show, and while it's not an immediate concern, it might be a possible "popcorn" anime for me in the future. So...any yays or nays from anyone who's seen it? Thanks.
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ManOfRust
 Posts: 1935 Location: Seattle, WA |
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If you have the connection with the games maybe you will like it, but I was not impressed with the anime by itself. It's very villain of the week for much of the series and then they try to cobble together some convoluted and ridiculous story in the last couple of episodes.
If you know all the characters from the games it might make a big difference. Then again, maybe the treatment they get in the anime will make you dislike the show even more than I did. In terms of animation, it's below average quality, kind of what you would expect from a mid-grade type TV series. It's not awful, but it's no eye candy either. I also wasn't impressed at all by the soundtrack. I can't remember anything about it, in fact. Overall, I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone except maybe a fan of the games it's based on. There are definitely better choices out there to spend your time watching. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6896 Location: Kazune City |
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If you don't expect much more than a popcorn anime, Wild Arms shouldn't disappoint. I don't know how faithfully it renders the games, so it might be torturous Character Derailment / Adaptation Decay for game fans. I went into it with no knowledge of the games, and I thought it was okay. MoR is right, WA is very episodic in the early stages. At least with something like Mushi-Shi you expect things to be completely different from episode to episode, but WA jumps from place to place with no rhyme or reason for awhile. Then at the middle of the series it starts revealing amain plot and stringing together a multi-episode story. Then there's about 5-7 more standalone stories, and finally the "we need an ending" plot that MoR mentioned. I thought it worked, but only because I didn't hold it against this based-on-JRPG-anime for throwing in a metric ton of standard JRPG devices.
Luckily WATV won't set you back too much, not for the prices it's fetching these days in the TRSI Bargain Bin and Amazon Marketplace. I thought the English dub was pretty good, too...it's one of a handful of dubs that ADV outsourced to California studios, Bang Zoom! in this case. The performances can be a little rough, but in listening to the dub with the subtitles on, I found the English script funny and interesting enough to make the show better than it should have been. |
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Unit 03.5-ish
Posts: 1540 Location: This space for rent |
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Yeah, it's floating around the $30 range, which is incredibly reasonable. I don't know how much of a connection there is to the games (the games themselves are technically unconnected except by certain recurring themes/characters/mascots...like Final Fantasy), and I'm surprised to hear the animation is OK, but not great. Especially since the encyclopedia says it's a Bee Train series, and I thought their animation on Noir was pretty slick. Maybe they put their C-team on this one?
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Boomerang Flash
 Posts: 1021 |
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There are some theories that the Wild Arms games are distant entries on the same timeline, particularly plausible between the first and third games. However, the contents are sufficiently different that they may as well be viewed as independent settings. With the exception of 4 and possibly XF, the Wild Arms series is known for a jRPG plot in a sci-fi and wild west setting admixed with a touch of magic, with 3 closest to steampunk and 1 the farthest. The TV series, as far as I can tell, is faithful in recreating this mixture, despite not being based on any particular game. It was made between 2 and 3 and kept the trend of a blue-haired gunslinger as the main character, though he is like neither Rudy nor Ashley, from what I can tell.
I have not seen TV the series, but I do associate with Wild Arms fans and can tell you the general reaction to the TV series. 1. There are some cameos from the series in the TV series, namely Kanon and Zed. The characters are completely different than in the games, and the changes have been regarded as negative. Kanon has been changed to a love-starved opera floozy, and Zed became an insane assassin. In both cases, the contrast with the original characterization is great, and the new characterization is executed poorly enough that they were badly received. 2. While the games are regarded as oddities (I disagree: The setting and tool system are oddities; the plot and battle system are not), the TV series is seen as generic, possibly because the setting does not contrast with other anime as sharply as it does with other jRPGs. The shift from episodic structure to conflict with the main antagonists also occurred too late in comparison with the games. |
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bahamut623
 Posts: 1463 |
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"Popcorn" is exactly right. If you're a fan of the games, then you will most likely have fun watching it. It's not bad at all, but it's not great. You can only expect so much from a video game adaptation.
The people who would get the most out of it would be fans of the games. The fantasy wild west feel of the games is there, as well as certain character types (blue haired hero, animal sidekicks, Crimson Nobles, etc.). The opening definitely gives off a Wild Arms vibe. You can pretend it's an anime version of a Wild Arms game that never got made. This series also introduced me to one of my favorite bands ever, Guitar Wolf! |
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LordRedhand
 Posts: 1472 Location: Middle of Nowhere, Indiana |
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It was a meh series for me, looking at it as a western I'd put between the 2nd season of Trigun (lowish) and Gun Frontier (Goodish, the ending kinda left me with ?)
The ending for Wild Arms also has the same ? to it but the episodic nature of the early and mid series kinda lends itself to a man with no name feel to it, similiar to the first season of Trigun. |
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